How do hospitals offset the cost of birth injury? A Cleveland lawyer pointed to a recent article in the Baltimore Business Journal that suggests recent rises in birth injury statistics in Maryland may help renew the push for a birth injury fund to provide for the victims of birth injury. Despite a steady decline in the state’s mortality rate, Maryland experienced a slight uptick in reported birth injuries in 2013. It was also revealed that drug or alcohol overdoses accounted for a full third of deaths among pregnant women or new mothers in 2013.

Doctors have been concerned about maternity services shrinking programs due to the expense of birth injury litigation. Last year, the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus (formerly Maryland General Hospital) shuttered its obstetrics and gynecology department. Mercy Medical Center ended its relationship with a popular midwife practice and has been very vocal about how the cost of litigation has strained its maternity ward. In response, it has helped form the Maryland Maternity Access Coalition, which seeks to establish a no fault birth injury fund.

Proponents argue that the fund would not only provide for the victims of birth injury, but would cool fears of litigation in the medical community. Doctors and hospitals would pay into the fund, which would award damages to clients of birth injury lawyers who have suffered as a result of malpractice. The group failed to push legislation through the General Assembly last year to create the fund, but hopes to have more success this year as a result of Maryland’s recent increase in birth injuries.